CI(1) CI(1)
NAME
ci - check in RCS revisions
SYNOPSIS
ci [options] file ...
DESCRIPTION
ci stores new revisions into RCS files. Each pathname matching an RCS suffix is taken to be an RCS
file. All others are assumed to be working files containing new revisions. ci deposits the contents
of each working file into the corresponding RCS file. If only a working file is given, ci tries to
find the corresponding RCS file in an RCS subdirectory and then in the working file's directory. For
more details, see FILE NAMING below.
For ci to work, the caller's login must be on the access list, except if the access list is empty or
the caller is the superuser or the owner of the file. To append a new revision to an existing
branch, the tip revision on that branch must be locked by the caller. Otherwise, only a new branch
can be created. This restriction is not enforced for the owner of the file if non-strict locking is
used (see rcs(1)). A lock held by someone else can be broken with the rcs command.
Unless the -f option is given, ci checks whether the revision to be deposited differs from the pre-ceding preceding
ceding one. If not, instead of creating a new revision ci reverts to the preceding one. To revert,
ordinary ci removes the working file and any lock; ci -l keeps and ci -u removes any lock, and then
they both generate a new working file much as if co -l or co -u had been applied to the preceding
revision. When reverting, any -n and -s options apply to the preceding revision.
For each revision deposited, ci prompts for a log message. The log message should summarize the
change and must be terminated by end-of-file or by a line containing . by itself. If several files
are checked in ci asks whether to reuse the previous log message. If the standard input is not a
terminal, ci suppresses the prompt and uses the same log message for all files. See also -m.
If the RCS file does not exist, ci creates it and deposits the contents of the working file as the
initial revision (default number: 1.1). The access list is initialized to empty. Instead of the log
message, ci requests descriptive text (see -t below).
The number rev of the deposited revision can be given by any of the options -f, -i, -I, -j, -k, -l,
-M, -q, -r, or -u. rev can be symbolic, numeric, or mixed. Symbolic names in rev must already be
defined; see the -n and -N options for assigning names during checkin. If rev is $, ci determines
the revision number from keyword values in the working file.
If rev begins with a period, then the default branch (normally the trunk) is prepended to it. If rev
is a branch number followed by a period, then the latest revision on that branch is used.
If rev is a revision number, it must be higher than the latest one on the branch to which rev
belongs, or must start a new branch.
If rev is a branch rather than a revision number, the new revision is appended to that branch. The
level number is obtained by incrementing the tip revision number of that branch. If rev indicates a
non-existing branch, that branch is created with the initial revision numbered rev.1.
If rev is omitted, ci tries to derive the new revision number from the caller's last lock. If the
caller has locked the tip revision of a branch, the new revision is appended to that branch. The new
revision number is obtained by incrementing the tip revision number. If the caller locked a non-tip
revision, a new branch is started at that revision by incrementing the highest branch number at that
revision. The default initial branch and level numbers are 1.
If rev is omitted and the caller has no lock, but owns the file and locking is not set to strict,
then the revision is appended to the default branch (normally the trunk; see the -b option of
rcs(1)).
Exception: On the trunk, revisions can be appended to the end, but not inserted.
OPTIONS
-rrev Check in revision rev.
-r The bare -r option (without any revision) has an unusual meaning in ci. With other RCS com-mands, commands,
mands, a bare -r option specifies the most recent revision on the default branch, but with ci,
a bare -r option reestablishes the default behavior of releasing a lock and removing the work-ing working
ing file, and is used to override any default -l or -u options established by shell aliases or
scripts.
-l[rev]
works like -r, except it performs an additional co -l for the deposited revision. Thus, the
deposited revision is immediately checked out again and locked. This is useful for saving a
revision although one wants to continue editing it after the checkin.
-u[rev]
works like -l, except that the deposited revision is not locked. This lets one read the work-ing working
ing file immediately after checkin.
The -l, bare -r, and -u options are mutually exclusive and silently override each other. For
example, ci -u -r is equivalent to ci -r because bare -r overrides -u.
-f[rev]
forces a deposit; the new revision is deposited even it is not different from the preceding
one.
-k[rev]
searches the working file for keyword values to determine its revision number, creation date,
state, and author (see co(1)), and assigns these values to the deposited revision, rather than
computing them locally. It also generates a default login message noting the login of the
caller and the actual checkin date. This option is useful for software distribution. A revi-sion revision
sion that is sent to several sites should be checked in with the -k option at these sites to
preserve the original number, date, author, and state. The extracted keyword values and the
default log message can be overridden with the options -d, -m, -s, -w, and any option that
carries a revision number.
-q[rev]
quiet mode; diagnostic output is not printed. A revision that is not different from the pre-ceding preceding
ceding one is not deposited, unless -f is given.
-i[rev]
initial checkin; report an error if the RCS file already exists. This avoids race conditions
in certain applications.
-j[rev]
just checkin and do not initialize; report an error if the RCS file does not already exist.
-I[rev]
interactive mode; the user is prompted and questioned even if the standard input is not a ter-minal. terminal.
minal.
-d[date]
uses date for the checkin date and time. The date is specified in free format as explained in
co(1). This is useful for lying about the checkin date, and for -k if no date is available.
If date is empty, the working file's time of last modification is used.
-M[rev]
Set the modification time on any new working file to be the date of the retrieved revision.
For example, ci -d -M -u f does not alter f's modification time, even if f's contents change
due to keyword substitution. Use this option with care; it can confuse make(1).
-mmsg uses the string msg as the log message for all revisions checked in. By convention, log mes-sages messages
sages that start with # are comments and are ignored by programs like GNU Emacs's vc package.
Also, log messages that start with {clumpname} (followed by white space) are meant to be
clumped together if possible, even if they are associated with different files; the {clump-name} {clumpname}
name} label is used only for clumping, and is not considered to be part of the log message
itself.
-nname assigns the symbolic name name to the number of the checked-in revision. ci prints an error
message if name is already assigned to another number.
-Nname same as -n, except that it overrides a previous assignment of name.
-sstate
sets the state of the checked-in revision to the identifier state. The default state is Exp.
-tfile writes descriptive text from the contents of the named file into the RCS file, deleting the
existing text. The file cannot begin with -.
-t-string
Write descriptive text from the string into the RCS file, deleting the existing text.
The -t option, in both its forms, has effect only during an initial checkin; it is silently
ignored otherwise.
During the initial checkin, if -t is not given, ci obtains the text from standard input, ter-minated terminated
minated by end-of-file or by a line containing . by itself. The user is prompted for the text
if interaction is possible; see -I.
For backward compatibility with older versions of RCS, a bare -t option is ignored.
-T Set the RCS file's modification time to the new revision's time if the former precedes the
latter and there is a new revision; preserve the RCS file's modification time otherwise. If
you have locked a revision, ci usually updates the RCS file's modification time to the current
time, because the lock is stored in the RCS file and removing the lock requires changing the
RCS file. This can create an RCS file newer than the working file in one of two ways: first,
ci -M can create a working file with a date before the current time; second, when reverting to
the previous revision the RCS file can change while the working file remains unchanged. These
two cases can cause excessive recompilation caused by a make(1) dependency of the working file
on the RCS file. The -T option inhibits this recompilation by lying about the RCS file's
date. Use this option with care; it can suppress recompilation even when a checkin of one
working file should affect another working file associated with the same RCS file. For exam-ple, example,
ple, suppose the RCS file's time is 01:00, the (changed) working file's time is 02:00, some
other copy of the working file has a time of 03:00, and the current time is 04:00. Then
ci -d -T sets the RCS file's time to 02:00 instead of the usual 04:00; this causes make(1) to
think (incorrectly) that the other copy is newer than the RCS file.
-wlogin
uses login for the author field of the deposited revision. Useful for lying about the author,
and for -k if no author is available.
-V Print RCS's version number.
-Vn Emulate RCS version n. See co(1) for details.
-xsuffixes
specifies the suffixes for RCS files. A nonempty suffix matches any pathname ending in the
suffix. An empty suffix matches any pathname of the form RCS/path or path1/RCS/path2. The -x
option can specify a list of suffixes separated by /. For example, -x,v/ specifies two suf-fixes: suffixes:
fixes: ,v and the empty suffix. If two or more suffixes are specified, they are tried in
order when looking for an RCS file; the first one that works is used for that file. If no RCS
file is found but an RCS file can be created, the suffixes are tried in order to determine the
new RCS file's name. The default for suffixes is installation-dependent; normally it is ,v/
for hosts like Unix that permit commas in filenames, and is empty (i.e. just the empty suffix)
for other hosts.
-zzone specifies the date output format in keyword substitution, and specifies the default time zone
for date in the -ddate option. The zone should be empty, a numeric UTC offset, or the special
string LT for local time. The default is an empty zone, which uses the traditional RCS format
of UTC without any time zone indication and with slashes separating the parts of the date;
otherwise, times are output in ISO 8601 format with time zone indication. For example, if
local time is January 11, 1990, 8pm Pacific Standard Time, eight hours west of UTC, then the
time is output as follows:
option time output
-z 1990/01/12 04:00:00 (default)
-zLT 1990-01-11 20:00:00-08
-z+05:30 1990-01-12 09:30:00+05:30
The -z option does not affect dates stored in RCS files, which are always UTC.
FILE NAMING
Pairs of RCS files and working files can be specified in three ways (see also the example section).
1) Both the RCS file and the working file are given. The RCS pathname is of the form path1/workfileX
and the working pathname is of the form path2/workfile where path1/ and path2/ are (possibly differ-ent different
ent or empty) paths, workfile is a filename, and X is an RCS suffix. If X is empty, path1/ must
start with RCS/ or must contain /RCS/.
2) Only the RCS file is given. Then the working file is created in the current directory and its
name is derived from the name of the RCS file by removing path1/ and the suffix X.
3) Only the working file is given. Then ci considers each RCS suffix X in turn, looking for an RCS
file of the form path2/RCS/workfileX or (if the former is not found and X is nonempty) path2/work-fileX. path2/workfileX.
fileX.
If the RCS file is specified without a path in 1) and 2), ci looks for the RCS file first in the
directory ./RCS and then in the current directory.
ci reports an error if an attempt to open an RCS file fails for an unusual reason, even if the RCS
file's pathname is just one of several possibilities. For example, to suppress use of RCS commands
in a directory d, create a regular file named d/RCS so that casual attempts to use RCS commands in d
fail because d/RCS is not a directory.
EXAMPLES
Suppose ,v is an RCS suffix and the current directory contains a subdirectory RCS with an RCS file
io.c,v. Then each of the following commands check in a copy of io.c into RCS/io.c,v as the latest
revision, removing io.c.
ci io.c; ci RCS/io.c,v; ci io.c,v;
ci io.c RCS/io.c,v; ci io.c io.c,v;
ci RCS/io.c,v io.c; ci io.c,v io.c;
Suppose instead that the empty suffix is an RCS suffix and the current directory contains a subdirec-tory subdirectory
tory RCS with an RCS file io.c. The each of the following commands checks in a new revision.
ci io.c; ci RCS/io.c;
ci io.c RCS/io.c;
ci RCS/io.c io.c;
FILE MODES
An RCS file created by ci inherits the read and execute permissions from the working file. If the
RCS file exists already, ci preserves its read and execute permissions. ci always turns off all
write permissions of RCS files.
FILES
Temporary files are created in the directory containing the working file, and also in the temporary
directory (see TMPDIR under ENVIRONMENT). A semaphore file or files are created in the directory
containing the RCS file. With a nonempty suffix, the semaphore names begin with the first character
of the suffix; therefore, do not specify an suffix whose first character could be that of a working
filename. With an empty suffix, the semaphore names end with _ so working filenames should not end
in _.
ci never changes an RCS or working file. Normally, ci unlinks the file and creates a new one; but
instead of breaking a chain of one or more symbolic links to an RCS file, it unlinks the destination
file instead. Therefore, ci breaks any hard or symbolic links to any working file it changes; and
hard links to RCS files are ineffective, but symbolic links to RCS files are preserved.
The effective user must be able to search and write the directory containing the RCS file. Normally,
the real user must be able to read the RCS and working files and to search and write the directory
containing the working file; however, some older hosts cannot easily switch between real and effec-tive effective
tive users, so on these hosts the effective user is used for all accesses. The effective user is the
same as the real user unless your copies of ci and co have setuid privileges. As described in the
next section, these privileges yield extra security if the effective user owns all RCS files and
directories, and if only the effective user can write RCS directories.
Users can control access to RCS files by setting the permissions of the directory containing the
files; only users with write access to the directory can use RCS commands to change its RCS files.
For example, in hosts that allow a user to belong to several groups, one can make a group's RCS
directories writable to that group only. This approach suffices for informal projects, but it means
that any group member can arbitrarily change the group's RCS files, and can even remove them
entirely. Hence more formal projects sometimes distinguish between an RCS administrator, who can
change the RCS files at will, and other project members, who can check in new revisions but cannot
otherwise change the RCS files.
SETUID USE
To prevent anybody but their RCS administrator from deleting revisions, a set of users can employ
setuid privileges as follows.
Check that the host supports RCS setuid use. Consult a trustworthy expert if there are any doubts.
It is best if the seteuid system call works as described in Posix 1003.1a Draft 5, because RCS can
switch back and forth easily between real and effective users, even if the real user is root. If
not, the second best is if the setuid system call supports saved setuid (the {_POSIX_SAVED_IDS}
behavior of Posix 1003.1-1990); this fails only if the real or effective user is root. If RCS
detects any failure in setuid, it quits immediately.
Choose a user A to serve as RCS administrator for the set of users. Only A can invoke the rcs com-mand command
mand on the users' RCS files. A should not be root or any other user with special powers. Mutu-ally Mutually
ally suspicious sets of users should use different administrators.
Choose a pathname B to be a directory of files to be executed by the users.
Have A set up B to contain copies of ci and co that are setuid to A by copying the commands from
their standard installation directory D as follows:
mkdir B
cp D/c[io] B
chmod go-w,u+s B/c[io]
Have each user prepend B to their path as follows:
PATH=B:$PATH; export PATH # ordinary shell
set path=(B $path) # C shell
Have A create each RCS directory R with write access only to A as follows:
mkdir R
chmod go-w R
If you want to let only certain users read the RCS files, put the users into a group G, and have A
further protect the RCS directory as follows:
chgrp G R
chmod g-w,o-rwx R
Have A copy old RCS files (if any) into R, to ensure that A owns them.
An RCS file's access list limits who can check in and lock revisions. The default access list is
empty, which grants checkin access to anyone who can read the RCS file. If you want limit checkin
access, have A invoke rcs -a on the file; see rcs(1). In particular, rcs -e -aA limits access to
just A.
Have A initialize any new RCS files with rcs -i before initial checkin, adding the -a option if you
want to limit checkin access.
Give setuid privileges only to ci, co, and rcsclean; do not give them to rcs or to any other com-mand. command.
mand.
Do not use other setuid commands to invoke RCS commands; setuid is trickier than you think!
ENVIRONMENT
RCSINIT
options prepended to the argument list, separated by spaces. A backslash escapes spaces
within an option. The RCSINIT options are prepended to the argument lists of most RCS com-mands. commands.
mands. Useful RCSINIT options include -q, -V, -x, and -z.
TMPDIR Name of the temporary directory. If not set, the environment variables TMP and TEMP are
inspected instead and the first value found is taken; if none of them are set, a host-depen-dent host-dependent
dent default is used, typically /tmp.
DIAGNOSTICS
For each revision, ci prints the RCS file, the working file, and the number of both the deposited and
the preceding revision. The exit status is zero if and only if all operations were successful.
IDENTIFICATION
Author: Walter F. Tichy.
Manual Page Revision: 1.1; Release Date: 1999/04/23.
Copyright (C) 1982, 1988, 1989 Walter F. Tichy.
Copyright (C) 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 Paul Eggert.
SEE ALSO
co(1), emacs(1), ident(1), make(1), rcs(1), rcsclean(1), rcsdiff(1), rcsintro(1), rcsmerge(1),
rlog(1), setuid(2), rcsfile(5)
Walter F. Tichy, RCS--A System for Version Control, Software--Practice & Experience 15, 7 (July
1985), 637-654.
GNU 1999/04/23 CI(1)
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